Rats that are socially isolated during a critical period of adolescence are more vulnerable to addiction to amphetamine and alcohol. Amphetamine addiction is also harder to extinguish in the socially isolated rats. These effects, which are described this week in the journal Neuron, persist even after the rats are reintroduced into the community of other rats.

Taking Aim at Addiction: The work of a group of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin revolves around a central question: "Why can drugs hijack the brain to such an extent that people ruin their lives, lose everything they have simply to get more of the drug?" That's the question posed by R. Adron Harris, an alcoholism researcher and the director of the Waggoner Center for Addiction and Alcohol Abuse.